A screen shot from presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty's "The Only Candidate" TV ad.

The latest TV ad for Tim Pawlenty does a “product placement” type flash to the name of a big oil trade group with close ties to his campaign.

And three of the smiling faces in the advertisement also have connections to the campaign’s consultants or the trade group.

The ad mostly features images of the Republican candidate, but does a short close-up of blue T-shirts emblazoned with the name of the Iowa Energy Forum.

The Iowa Energy Forum, a program of the American Petroleum Institute oil industry trade group, has caught attention lately because it hired Iowa GOP operatives Karen Slifka and Chuck Larson to promote its agenda here – and both Slifka and Larson are on board with Pawlenty campaign.

Some rival campaigns consider those relationships a conflict of interest.

The ad came out about a week and a half ago, before a Des Moines Register about the relationships published Thursday.